As states face an acute shortage of COVID-19 vaccines, Maharashtra decided on Wednesday to suspend its drive to vaccinate people in the age group of 18 to 44 years while Delhi also temporarily shut Covaxin administering centres for them as it has run out of stock.
The Tamil Nadu government was the latest to announce global tenders for procurement of COVID-19 vaccines, while the Rajasthan government was also mulling a similar step. Uttarakhand officials said the state will import 20 lakh doses of Sputnik vaccine over the next two months.
States like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Delhi have already opted for global tenders to meet their needs.
Amid demands to ramp up domestic supply, Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech have submitted to the Centre their production plan for the next four months, informing that they can scale it up to 10 crore and 7.8 crore doses respectively by August, official sources said.
